Run
by waterbaby134
Summary: Red John is dead, and Jane must decide on his next move.


**This little story is set the day RJ is killed. No spoilers for season 6 or anything like that, just some musings on what might be next for our favourite pair after the dragon is slain.**

**Rated T**

**I don't own anything.**

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She can't remember the last time she got a decent night's sleep. It's been weeks since she got more than a couple of hours worth at a time, and even longer since she's slept the whole night through. The looming threat to their lives wasn't exactly conducive to sleep, after all.

But Red John is gone now. Jane and his knife got to him first, but to finish it, she shot him in the head herself, pumped an entire magazine into his skull just to make sure the son of a bitch was actually dead.

She hopes he's in Hell right now, finally paying the price for the lives he ruined, and the people he killed. Red John deserves no less than eternal damnation for what he's put them all through.

It's over, though. And that's the most important part.

Jane retreated up to his attic the moment he'd given his statement and refused to come down or speak to anybody, so she's not totally sure how he's coping with it all. He's spent ten years in the pursuit of this one, single goal, so what will he do now that it's done?

She tosses and turns on the cotton sheets, trying to get comfortable, to convince her frazzled mind that it's finally OK to let it's guard down. Red John is dead. Jane and the team are alive, and as far as she can figure, nobody's going to jail. For the first time in years, she can sleep soundly.

But the minutes crawl by, and still sleep doesn't come, even though her body is exhausted. She's still sore all over, even though she indulged in an extremely long bath once she came home. She's tried reading a few chapters of a book to try and distract herself. She even had a quick glance at an expense form for next week's budget meeting to try and bore herself to sleep, but to no avail.

She can't stop thinking about him. What is_ he_ thinking about right now? Is he all right? Has he already upped and skipped town like she always feared he would, the day this was all over?

She imagines walking into the attic in the morning and finding him gone. It's a very real possibility. And she has a feeling that if he leaves her again, this time he won't be coming back.

She inhales slowly. It's late. And surely he wouldn't go anywhere without saying goodbye. They mean too much to each other now for him to blow her off that way. They've been to hell and back together. Surely that counts for something, even in Jane's twisted view of morality.

But she still can't be sure.

A good night's sleep is what she needs, and then tomorrow she can face him refreshed and confident, and ready for whatever he might decide to do now.

She closes her eyes, and tries to focus on her breathing; like Jane showed her the last time she was having trouble sleeping, during the Volker case. She can't help but remember his gentle voice, instructing her, his warm hands brushing against the side of her face as he reached for a pillow.

Oh, how she craves his touch right now, even if just for a fleeting moment.

She takes another slow breath, and pictures him beside her, telling her to sleep or she'll be grumpy in the morning, and eyes alight with mischief, shooting her that cheeky smile. The one that makes her agree to anything he wants, and that she can never resist.

She hopes that he'll smile more now the devil is gone. Laugh. Rediscover some happiness in simply being alive. He deserves it.

More sleepless minutes pass, and still she's not getting any closer to drifting off, however much she'd like to. Even now, he could be packing his bags and melting away into the night, never to return. She can't let him do that.

She won't let him do it.

She flings the covers from her body and sits up.

She has to go to him.

* * *

It's almost unnerving to him how unaffected the rest of the world seems. His life has been purged of its greatest enemy forever. Everything has changed. And yet life in inner city Sacramento rolls on like it always has. He looks through the window to see the city become the usual patchwork of twinkling lights, and hear the evening traffic. Every now and then, he spots a small figure wending it's way through the streets.

He wants to call out to them. Don't they understand what has happened today? Don't they care?

He and the team achieved something monumental today, and even though he knows he'll never speak of it again out loud, still he feels that the world should know, somehow. How long they fought. How hard they struggled. How much they sacrificed.

He still can't quite believe that it's all over. Red John is finally dead. For the first time in ten years, he's free. He can go wherever he wants to go, do whatever he wants to do. He can live out the rest of his days with the peace of mind of knowing that the man who killed his family is no longer drawing breath.

The light tread of a footstep outside the door alerts him to the fact that he has company, and he almost smiles to himself. He was wondering how long it would take for her to come and check on him. Frankly, he's surprised she held off as long as she did.

Well, at the very least, he owes her the right to see if he's OK.

He slides the lock back with a click, and he opens the door to find her standing on the threshold, dressed in sweats, her hair pulled up in a messy bun on the top of her head, her face free of make-up. She's carrying nothing but her car keys; apparently even her precious cell phone wasn't necessary for this trip.

"Hi."

She looks a little apprehensive; clearly worried he's going to throw her out.

"Can't sleep?" he asks instead, and she shakes her head. "Come in."

She follows him through the sliding door, and he pulls it shut behind them.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." He pauses a moment to take in the way she looks in the moonlight, somehow smaller, and more fragile than he's used to, or perhaps that's just the aftereffects of today. Perhaps his little Valkyrie has finally started to run out of steam.

Her eyes travel over to the couch that serves as his bed. Two battered bags sit upon it, half-full of papers she recognizes from his bulletin board and various other knickknacks that he's been keeping up here.

"Going somewhere?"

He suddenly wishes he'd had the sense to put the bags out of sight before he let her in.

"I'm not sure yet," he answers, truthfully. There's a lot of good reasons why leaving this place would be the best thing for him to do. But there are also very good reasons he should stay, chiefly the one that's currently standing in front of him, looking at him with such undisguised hurt, it feels like a punch in the stomach.

"But you're packing anyway?"

"Not exactly. Just…cleaning up a little."

"Right." She folds her arms across her chest. "What are you going to do with all this stuff?"

He shrugs. "Throw it away. Burn it. It's no good to anyone now."

She picks up a pile of papers that are scattered on the couch, sits down on it, and rifles through them. Names and locations jump out at her, all joined together by Jane's messy handwriting, making theories and looking for connections.

"Are you sure you want to do that? Ten years went into this. It's practically your life's work."

"My life's work is lying on a slab in the county morgue. I have no need for any of this junk anymore."

To emphasize the point, he picks up a glass that is sitting on the windowsill, and hurls it at the wall. It shatters.

"Kind of like me, I guess." She drops the papers on the couch beside her, and looks up at him questioningly. "Now you've done what you had to do, am I disposable too?"

He notices that for the first time, she doesn't include the team or the Bureau in the question. She's asking for herself. For some reason, it makes him worry more about how well she's dealing with all this. Saint Teresa never puts herself first. It's one of her greatest, and also most frustrating, qualities.

"Why would you even ask that?" He sits down beside her. "You know that's not the case."

"Do I?" She turns her head so their gazes meet, her emerald eyes burning with the question. "If I hadn't come here tonight, would you have been here in the morning? Would you even have left a note?"

She's beautiful in the moonlight, even with sadness radiating from her in waves.

"Probably not." He dips his head in shame. He considered a note at one stage, but abandoned the idea when he realized he had no idea how to even begin to say goodbye to her. "The plan was basically just to take off in the middle of the night and never look back."

"Well then." She gets to her feet and stands aside, leaving the path to the doorway clear. "Don't let me stop you."

He doesn't move, and neither does she. Stalemate.

"That's it?" He can't help the incredulity at her lack of argument. "Just so long, good luck?"

"I've spent ten years showing you how much I care about you. If that's not enough to make you want to stay, I just don't know what else I can do."

"Our friendship is more important to me than anything else in the world." If nothing else, he needs her to understand that much.

She sighs. "Then why do I always feel like I'm the only one who is fighting for it? I can only give so much, Jane. At some point, you've got to meet me halfway."

She's tired of waiting to find out how he feels about her. She's tired of being patient.

"Just so we're clear though," she says, softly. "If you do leave this time, don't bother coming back. I'll be better off if you just get out of my life and stay out of it."

She's long ago accepted the fact that the man she loves may slip through her fingers. But she's not going to allow him to toy with her any longer. He has to make a choice now, and live with the consequences.

He looks at her for the longest time, but she doesn't dare break the heavy silence. Instead, she memorizes his face, maps the greys and the blues in his eyes. After all, she might never see him again after today.

"I need time to think about this," he pleads her. "Do you realize what you're asking me?"

"I'm asking you to tell me what you want," she says. "That's all. The rest we can figure out later. So what do you really want?"

His future depends on this moment. The rest of his life will be defined by the choice he's about to make. But he knows what the answer will be. He's known for a long time.

"You."

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**I hope you enjoyed this.**


End file.
